By The Preacher
1. The Unlikely Armies of God
When your enemy is God, it is pointless to fight, because you will never win. In such conflicts, the mighty God could hire such ordinary fighters as frogs, such little fellows as locusts and lice, such hellish missiles as hailstones, or fiercer regiments like the heathenish brutish Babylonians (Jeremiah 25:9; Exodus 8). His army might be as deceptively fragile as flies and little as lice yet, even with supersonic chariots and the backing of superpower Egypt, you will never win against them. Swift chariots do not guarantee a victory in every war, not especially when God is on the other side (Proverbs 21:31).
2. Discerning Battles
Times of persisting pains and wearisome wars are times when intercessors should seek God and discern between enemies on His assignment and those on their own assignment, or even enemies on Satan’s mission; between enemies attracted by our foolishness and those attracted by our sinfulness; between armies coming at us and those merely passing by to a different destination, whom we should let alone to go on their way or otherwise die an unfortunate death at their innocent hands, like Josiah the regretted good king of Judah, the casualty of a rash and thoughtless holy war (2 Chronicles 35:20-25). Being strong is no reason to get into every fight.
3. The Other Side of God
Sometimes we think of God as too nice to do ‘harm,’ so we persist in error and perish in it. That might have been the case in Israel when God gave a loud notice, warning very strangely, “Behold, I bring EVIL upon this people … I will lay stumblingblocks before this people” (Jeremiah 6:19, 21). Does that sound like the nice God we preach?
If you heard such a prophecy in your church during a prayer meeting, a voice of God threatening EVIL and plural stumbling blocks rather than promising sure goodness and mercy, would you agree so quickly that it was the voice of God? Does the good God bring evil upon anyone? Does ‘evil’ not rhyme better with ‘devil’ than with ‘Jehovah Shalom’? And when did God bring Himself so low as a mean hunter, to “LAY stumblingblocks,” like traps, before His own creatures?
4. Can God be Enemy?
Can God be an enemy? Many prophets think so, although “enemy” might sound theologically and notionally negative in application to “Our Father which art in heaven.” Isaiah reports that when Israel “rebelled and grieved” God’s Holy Spirit, He “TURNED and became their enemy.” What did that mean? He “fought against them” – not against their enemies any more (Isaiah 63:10). So, can God ‘turn’ from being Protector to being Destroyer of whom He used to protect? In Jeremiah 21:5, God warned backslidden Judah, “I myself [not Satan] will fight against you.” When God started that ‘fight,’ the prophet lamented over Judah, “The Lord has become like an enemy” (Lamentations 2:5). Can God be an enemy? Many prophets think so.
5. When Sacrifices are a Waste
When times of persisting troubles come, unfortunately, it might seem easier to make more sacrifices than to repent; sacrifices that make matters worse, because they offend; sacrifices the kind of which God denounces thus, “To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me” (Jeremiah 6:20). Can sacrifices be wasted even on God’s appointed altar? Can potent holy altars be castrated by deaf transgressions? Sometimes we have blamed our woes on the altars when we should have been checking the sacrifices brought thereon.
6. When Battles Persist
May God never be your Enemy, for that is one battle no one ever wins. To fight His soldiers in that season because they seem so fragile, is to set yourself against the Terrible One whose messengers they are. When dispensable worms become such unconquerable dragons, when fragile frogs fire at us season after season with uninterceptible missiles of venomous annoyance, it may be time to retreat and inquire, “Lord, is that You?”
When battles persist despite repeated sacrifices; when tender creatures like lice turn into such unconquerable foes; when rivers fight us with blood and frogs, the heavens with hails, the air with lice, and palpable darkness overtakes us at noon, it may be time, like Joshua, to fall upon our faces with dust upon our heads and inquire, “Alas, O Lord GOD, wherefore …” (Joshua 7:6-7). If we don’t, powerful pesticides will be a waste against His flimsy flies, and power lanterns will be pointless against the concrete darkness He drops.
Swift chariots do not guarantee a victory in every war, and sacrifices can be offensive on altars that should rather have been offering obedience (1 Samuel 15:22-23). When rulers miss this, they could be about to go.
● This piece was first published by thepreacherdiary.com
